The Redesign of Grashof Incubator Concerning the Alternative Heating System and the Ergonomic Aspect

Delivering neonatal babies is still happening inIndonesia and low incomes families often cannot afford tobuy/rent baby incubators during the baby critical growingperiod. Charity groups are lending electrically driven Grashofincubators freely to whom that have financial difficulties. Freeincubator still does not immediately solve the problem of thefamilies as nowadays supply of electricity from our IndonesianState Electricity Company to some areas is not deliveredconstantly. As a result, electricity blackout appears frequentlyespecially at under developed regions even in Jakarta regions.This issue makes such a tremendous anxiety for those familiesas the incubators heating system cannot work properly.Redesigning of heating system of the incubator will be thesolution to the problem. The redesign is to find alternativeenergy sources that maintain cabin temperature whenelectricity is out. The new alternative energy a heat exchangerbased on hot water flowing in a tubular heating system. Theusability of the device is to be considered due to the currentdevice cannot be suitably operated by common people, wheresome difficulties still appear when operating of the unit. Theincubator must also be confidently safe for the neonatal babiesand their parents.

I. Introduction

Incubator is extremely important equipment for a premature baby as the baby needs a special care to provide the best possible chance of survival and a healthy future. The babies are mostly very small and are nursed in an incubator to keep them warm. Mechanical Engineering Department of Universitas Indonesia has designed and produced a very silent incubator. In distributing the units, the department proposes a humanitarian program that means to lend incubator freely especially for the families under poverty line all across Indonesia. In the remote area, unfortunately electricity is still a luxury community to obtain meaning that not all people can get an electric line. Anyhow, in the developing provinces electricity is still not always available any time.